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Welcome, one and all to yet another Super Powers highlight. Today I’m showcasing perhaps the most common of the Gulliver Super Powers releases, Wonder Woman. Keep in mind that when I use the term "most common" I mean it’s still rarer than nearly every single US carded release and most of the Super Amigos. So, in essence, it’s just the one that most SP collectors seem to have when they have a Gulliver carded figure.

For those that don’t know, Gulliver Juguetes was a Brazilian toy company pretty much known for one figure…El Capitan Ray. This Wonder Woman is part of their Super Powers line of figures (naturally), however Mister Lightning is not on the back of the package. The lovely Amazon warrior was obviously released first, and the cardback shows only 7 figures in the first wave. More on them later on. Gulliver released two waves of Super Powers figures, Secret Wars figures, and their own line of characters, the Future Warriors. However, I don’t know anything about that last line at all. Heh. Anyway…

Hello, and welcome to the first "common" edition of whatever this thing is that I call a blog. I’m going to be not only highlighting the rarites I have in my collection, but also everything else…no matter how common. Yes, I know y’all are chomping at the bit for my 12-back Lex Luthor highlight, but rest assured that will be when I’m well past running out of ideas here.

With the second series of Super Powers figures, many fan favorites and then "B-Listers" were produced, as well as a multitude of New God goodness. The "heaviest hitter" in that wave was Martian Manhunter. What makes this figure pretty neat to highlight is that, to this day, it remains one of the best sculpts of an action figure ever. Likeness, accuracy of costume, etc…this is not only one of the best figures of the line, but it could also hold up against some of today’s aisle offerings (Hello, Infinite Heroes! I’m looking your way!).

Up for a highlight this time around is the Trilingual Hawkman, released in Europe. It seems as if the Trilingual figures were manufactured by different companies depending on the country. Text on the back of the card credits Palitoy, Clipper, and General Mills. Subtle differences exist in the card fronts, with some having the character’s name in a yellow band on the lower right card front, while others don’t have any band at all (reminiscent of the US 33-backs). As I acquire more examples hopefully I’ll be able to determine which variations come from which manufacturers. I know that some came with a small white box on the upper right with text in it, but since I don’t own one (at the end I’ll tell how I should, but don’t) I can’t say if that has any relevant info in it.

The cards are smaller than their US counterparts. Hawkman has the largest bubble of all of them, which takes up nearly the entire bottom 2/3rds of the card, obscuring the artwork.

All Trilinguals have the "speech bubble" that their American counterparts have, only represented in three languages instead of one. However, some have a "Free Poster" sticker applied over it. This bubble is from the Superman figure. As to why I don’t have a photo of the Hawkman speech bubble and had to use the Superman one, read on…

This is the sticker that covers the speech bubble :

Mini comic included? Not with that free poster in there! Also, the examples I have without the sticker that claim the free comic included also don’t have them. False advertising, indeed! Call the policia!

The card back is a 12-back, and those were the only figures released in this packaging. The aforementioned name in the yellow strip is shown in 3 languages, the 12 released figures are described in three languages, and there are multi-language bios and instructions on the figure’s action/feature.

As of today this remains the only carded example confirmed to exist, with or without the free poster sticker. Needless to say, I’m very happy it resides in my collection. Another example sans sticker surfaced on eBay a few months ago, and I did win that auction (along with 5 other Trilinguals without stickers) :

However, the moron sellers (after initially saying the package had been shipped when I asked) never again responded to my inquiries and the package never showed up. They then never even responded to my Paypal claim…and they lost it. While I’m glad I recovered my money, I’d have rather had the figures. So, there’s at least one more example out there virtually (because the picture must have come from somewhere), however it’s not in any known collection. It might have been thrown out with the garbage for all anyone knows, and that’s too bad.

I’ve decided to start blogging about various things Super Powers as I acquire more items for my collection, hopefully bringing things to light that people haven’t seen before or may be curious about. There certainly isn’t much information about Super Powers merchandise out there, tho the two main (and seemingly only) sites are definitely of top quality.

Also, most of the major collectors don’t seem to have any interest in putting everything they have into galleries online. While that’s certainly fine (hey, it’s their stuff…they paid for it and can do what they want with it), I’m not that type of person. I want to share everything I have and whatever knowledge I’ve gained on what I’ve been able to find.

The first item I’ve decided to highlight is my Plastic Man Carded Sample, which I acquired last year from a vintage Star Wars collector.